By contrast to the previous post, here is a design by the firm BAM that takes an existing building and creates a green roof dedicated to birds in lower Manhattan. The roof is designed as a ‘refueling station’ for migratory birds along the Atlantic Flyway and is an intricate design aimed at maintaining insect populations to provide the birds with food. There is significant structure built on the existing roof that was possible with analysis of the current buildings structure and using that structure to add weight in certain areas. This provides extra topography, water pools, as well as a ‘tree’.
The design aims at a number of different bird species including swallows, a hummingbird, owl, kestrel, bluebird and hawk. These birds were not selected at random, the designers worked with ornithologists from different universities to target specific flyway species and to create appropriately sized areas for those species.
There have been a number of creative and interesting designs such as this, but unfortunately none have been built as of yet. Once one finally gets past the design stage it could very well start a rapid spread of similar projects. Green roofs weren’t very common in the US until very recently, but once they started they took of at a very fast speed so perhaps green roofs designed for wildlife will have the same result. One can only hope.
Visit BAM to see many illustrations and their description of this project.
World Architecture News has a good article about the project.
